Transformers 2 ‘Humor’ As Stupid As The First?

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, co-writers of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, talked to the folks over at SCI FI Wire the other day and briefly discussed the Transformers sequel and what we can expect from it in terms of tone, style and comedy.

Kurtzman and Orci, who together wrote the first Transformers and this summer’s Star Trek, say that Revenge of the Fallen has the same tone as its predecessor and that it’ll flow better than the first.

“Actually, I think you’ll find that it has all the same tone of the first movie… The story’s a little smoother, and it’s a little bit darker, so it does dip in there a little bit, but it has all the same humor, if not more than the first movie.”

We can definitely see the hints of a darker movie from the teaser and full trailer, but from the ShoWest footage for the movie we were shown an example of the humor that the sequel attempts to balance in the film with the action. That “comedic scene” came in the form of Bumblebee crying and gushing lubricant from his eyes as Sam tells him he’s leaving for college without him. It really wasn’t that funny, but I have higher hopes from the other humorous bits that the movie will include.

While I did enjoy a lot of the funny bits in Transformers, some things were just awful and out of place – the worst being when Agent Simmons tells Mikaela (Megan Fox) “She’s a criminal. And criminals are HOT!” Actually, pretty much all the scenes involving John Turturro’s character that were meant to be funny came off as awkward – to the point of taking me out of the movie experience.

If you haven’t watched the first movie in a while (hard to believe it came out nearly two years ago), I recommend watching it before seeing the sequel. I watched it recently and got a kick out of the action scenes which I loved the first time around but I found myself disappointed in the non-action bits. I had forgotten many of the weak parts of the movie until re-watching it again. Most of those parts centered around scenes or dialogue meant to be funny, but instead are childish (in a bad way) and/or nonsensical. From a stupid cop, to a stupid Defense Secretary, to a modelesque computer analyst and to the infamous government agent, Simmons, many supporting characters are intentionally written to not make sense and act stupid.

Is that what we’re getting more of? Does that sell more toys, tickets or DVDs? There were of course other characters that fans complained about but I enjoyed their comedic scenes for the most part.

I really hope this movie is better-constructed and well-developed. I want the characters to make sense in their roles and for their motivations to be believable. Most of all, I want fans to enjoy this more than the first and for the movie to earn itself some better reviews than the first did two summers ago. I hope it’s not too much to ask for.

What do you think of what the writers say about the humor about the Transformers sequel, is it a good or bad thing?